'The last president to vilify the FBI was Nixon': Trump's war with the FBI is set to backfire spectacularly

President Donald Trump pauses while speaking to the media before speaking with members of the armed forces via video conference at his private club, Mar-a-Lago, on Thanksgiving, Thursday, Nov. 23, 2017, in Palm Beach, Fla.

source

Associated Press/Alex Brandon

President Donald Trump has escalated a burgeoning war
with the FBI in the wake of former national security adviser
Michael Flynn reaching a plea agreement with the special
counsel.

Trump has slammed the FBI, saying they "ruined" Flynn's
life.

His battle could backfire, as it did in a tweet this
weekend.

Former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday to
lying to federal agents about his conversations with the former
Russian ambassador. President Donald Trump's initial reaction
over the weekend: attacking the FBI as a "rigged"
agency that had "ruined" Flynn's life while letting Hillary
Clinton off the hook.

Ad

"So General Flynn lies to the FBI and his life is destroyed,
while Crooked Hillary Clinton, on that now famous FBI holiday
'interrogation' with no swearing in and no recording, lies many
times ... and nothing happens to her? Rigged system, or just a
double standard?" Trump tweeted on Saturday night.

He continued his attacks on Sunday, characterizing the bureau's
investigation of Clinton's private email server as "tainted"
because of text messages sent last year by one of the agents in
charge of that probe that appeared to show an
anti-Trump skew.

The president also laid into former FBI Director James Comey,
whom he blamed for leaving the bureau's reputation "in tatters"
after a "phony and dishonest Clinton investigation."

Ad

Speaking to reporters Monday morning, Trump said again that Flynn
had been treated unfairly.

"I feel badly for General Flynn. ... Hillary Clinton lied many
times to the FBI and nothing happened to her," Trump said. "She
lied many times, nothing happened to her. Flynn lied and they
ruined his life. It's very unfair."

Scott Olson, a recently retired FBI agent who spent 20
years at the bureau and specialized in
counterintelligence, acknowledged that "Comey did more
damage than he realized or intended by how he handled things last
year."

But he said he thinks Trump "is actively keeping a narrative
alive to counter the news coming out of Mueller's investigation.
And I think he'll continue to latch onto any and all available
targets to support his counter-narrative."

'We have a couple of surprises left'

Trump's suggestion that the FBI has sought to protect Clinton was
undermined last November by his own campaign surrogate and close
confidante, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

A few days before the 2016 election, Giuliani indicated in an interview with
Fox News that someone within or close to the FBI had leaked him
information about the email investigation into Clinton because
they were "outraged" by the way Comey had handled it. Giuliani
also suggested he and the Trump campaign intended to weaponize
that information before Election Day.

"We have a couple of surprises left," he said.

In a later interview, three days before Election Day, Giuliani
claimed that there was "a revolution going on" inside the FBI
that had reached "a boiling point" over Comey's decision to close
the Clinton probe without recommending criminal charges.

The reason for the leaks to Giuliani - and to multiple media
outlets in the days leading up to the election - was that "the
FBI is Trumpland," one FBI agent told The Guardian last November.
Some agents, the person added, had openly discussed voting for
Trump.

caption

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani speaks to members of the news media after meeting with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower in New York

source

Thomson Reuters

"The reason why they're leaking is they're pro-Trump," another
unnamed agent told the publication. Clinton "is the Antichrist
personified to a large swath of FBI personnel."

Olson, for his part, argued that "the bureau is neither
anti-Trump nor anti-Hillary."

"All political opinions are well represented in the ranks of FBI
employees," he said. "And the debates over coffee and lunch are
the same as anywhere else."

Former FBI counterintelligence special agent Asha Rangappa, who
served under President George W. Bush, largely echoed that
assessment.

"There are people across the political spectrum, but by and large
I'd say it is a politically conservative organization," she said.

"It's worth noting that the FBI has objectively investigated
admins of both parties. Iran-Contra, Whitewater/Lewinsky, Valerie
Plame leak, etc. All of the Presidents in these investigations
let them take their course," she added. "The last president to
vilify the FBI was Nixon."

'Now Mueller knows what the truth is'

That Trump has defended Flynn while vilifying the FBI signals a
dual purpose to his attacks, experts say: undermine the bureau,
and alert Flynn that he could be rewarded with a pardon if he
limits what he tells Mueller, who is probing whether the Trump
campaign colluded with Russia and if Trump attempted to obstruct
justice when he fired Comey.

But taking his feud with the FBI and defense of Flynn into the
court of public opinion may backfire for the president. A tweet
he sent on Saturday showed why: It seemed to indicate that he
knew Flynn had lied to the FBI when he asked Comey to drop the
investigation into Flynn raising more questions about whether he
tried to obstruct justice.

The White House scrambled to clean up the mess Trump's tweet had
created, claiming hours later that Trump's lawyer John Dowd had
crafted the tweet inartfully.

Legal experts were incredulous.

caption

Former U.S. National Security Adviser Michael Flynn departs after a plea hearing at U.S. District Court, in Washington, U.S., December 1, 2017.

source

Joshua Roberts/Reuters

"Most lawyers I know are so careful about what they write that
they triple-check every letter they send out," said former
federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti. "We're supposed to believe
Trump's lawyer wrote a false tweet about the Mueller
investigation and sent it out through the President's account?"

A pardon, moreover, would be essentially useless at this point,
said former Department of Justice spokesman Matt Miller - and
Flynn is likely aware of that.

"It would've worked before he started cooperating because Mueller
could then compel Flynn's testimony and he could just claim not
to remember anything," Miller said on Monday. "But now Mueller
knows what the truth is."

The truth, according to court documents filed by Mueller's office
on Friday, is that Flynn spoke to Russian ambassador Sergei
Kislyak about US sanctions on Russia during the presidential
transition period - but told federal agents that the subject
never came up.

Trump's renewed attacks on the FBI and hints of sympathy for his
former national security adviser won't change the fact that
Flynn, with his son facing criminal exposure and the looming
threat of more charges related to his undisclosed lobbying work
for Turkey, is now Mueller's star witness - one who, according to
his lawyer, "has a story to tell."